


Heart Like the Rock Cast in the Sea

by Cybertronic Purgatory (orphan_account)



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/F, Romance, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:10:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Cybertronic%20Purgatory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An old kinkmeme fill. Aria is Samara's old bondmate. Samara shows up at Afterlife to talk with Aria, stirring up many unpleasant memories for the Queen of Omega. The second chapter is a prequel of sorts, depicting the final melding between the two after Morinth ran away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Heart Like the Rock Cast in the Sea

"You're here to cause problems?" Aria asks, hand swiveling a glass of crystal-clear drink as she looks up at Samara. "Or did you solve them already and left me to clean up the mess?"

"She is dead." Only Samara can deliver the news of a dead daughter with such coldness, her surface not even rippling. It's not the woman Aria fell in love with, not anymore – centuries of searching for justice has wedged itself between them, changed the once gentle and warm asari into a cold rock that floats in space, detached and aloft.

Aria puts the drink down on the table without taking a sip. "Shame. She was my favorite."

At least Samara has the decency to not look at her like she's expecting tears, because it's been four hundred years and she's had a lot of time to become someone else, too. She's not as easily moved, because she's not the young maiden that fell head over heels for a matron in a bar half a millennium ago. She's definitely not the same pretty young thing she was then, when there was actual happiness in the holos, bouncing daughters on her knee.

Time changes people, flinging them through space, letting them hurl off towards unknown destinations on their own.

"Yet you did not warn her."

All Aria is reminded of now is their last melding. A desperate, apprehensive union, with their tears mingling with the sweat, the rotating hips not enough to stave off the emotions – the kisses not bruising enough – and as their minds joined, Aria had seen the first glimpse of what was to come, the cold resolve glinting like a knife blade within Samara.

"I don't insert myself in business I have no place being. This family feud? I'm happy it's over with, because I'm long past the family." She still pays for Falere and Rila's upkeep and housing. On occasion, she has entertained the thought of funding their escape, just to rub it in to Samara that she wasn't anywhere alright with the decision she made, but the years have passed and she doesn't want to seem that vindictive.

They stare at each other, the silence speaking volumes as they size the other up. It's hard to think that they used to be such a cutesy couple that their friends sometimes couldn't stand being near them. It's funny, because it isn't.

"Omega is quite the empire," Samara eventually says, hands closed behind her back. Even though Aria gives the subtle nod, she doesn't sit down – either she's out of touch with social codes or she's just being some weird form of polite.

"Beats dawdling around Thessia with a broken heart and imprisoned daughters." Aria goes straight for the heart. No point shooting at the limbs – if she wants to hurt someone, she'll make them hurt. Being near Samara brings up feelings buried so deep nothing should be able to extract them, and yet she manages.

"I did what I had to." Samara, a queen carved out of ice. The things rebelling daughters do to their mothers, and the way mothers over-react.

"Becoming a justicar is still fucking ridiculous."

"Ignoring the matter would have been wrong."

Aria lets out a cruel laugh. "What would you have me do? Kill her in her sleep? Strangle her with a pillow? You don't ask a mother to kill her child. Forgive me for actually having a heart."

"The difficult things are sometimes necessary."

There it is: the rationalizing and self-justifying. "That how you got Shepard to help you with it?"

Aria had followed Morinth on her cameras, keeping a close eye on her prodigal daughter. It was the first time Morinth had ever come to Omega, and she had fit in perfectly where she practically melted into the shadows of Afterlife, looking up at Aria's perch – and she was clever enough to keep her distance. Didn't ask the guards for an audience, didn't try to sneak her way to Aria's apartment.

"Shepard is... A special woman. She reminds me of you."

"I've met her. She's a lot of things, but me? She doesn't quite have the quads."

Morinth always was the brightest one, even though one wasn't meant to play favorites with three darling daughters, but Aria had a huge soft spot for Mirala. Soft enough for her not to want to see what had changed since.

Distance was graceful like that.

Samara wasn't. Didn't know when to stop.

"She reminds me of who you used to be."

Aria springs to her feet, nerves tingling with a biotic attack that could crush Samara against the wall, splattering blue blood over the entire club that would take days to clean up. Lots of credits lost – perhaps a million or two – and it would so be worth it.

The guards on her sides draw their pistols and aim at the justicar, who stands still, unflinching, even as Aria gets up in her face and hisses out a warning: "If I see you here again, I won't be as gentle as now." She's on fire, she wants to, but holds back, because she can be a hell of a lot better than this bitch that tore her life apart. It just takes a lot of restraint to prove it, over and over, but she'll keep on proving it until her corpse is thrown out the nearest airlock.

Samara nods and takes a step back. "I will not be disturbing you again. But..." She stops on the stairs, and there is a softening in her features. It's worrying to see – and Aria tries to quip, tries to say  _going soft on me now?_  but it doesn't come out, words flat on her tongue, unwilling.

"It was good to see you... Aria." There it is, the look in Samara's eyes she fell in love with long ago, on a different planet, in a different life. A tiny rupture in the barricade of time between then and now, small, but enough.

The suggestion in the gaze undoes Aria, and she reaches across the distance and cups Samara's face, pulling her close to kiss her. At first the justicar is stiff, unresponsive, and then she yields, just a fraction, hands on Aria's hips as she finally responds to the touch. Five hundred years melt away as they cross the distance and kiss like they did when they had just met, careless and hungry, loving and nervous, and the warmth that she hasn't felt for so long begins blossoming again. But too much has changed, and it doesn't overwhelm her in the same way.

The anger is still there though. Rage, too.

As she pushes Samara up against the wall and begins undoing the skin-tight red suit, the well-trained guards avert their eyes. They know the drill, but their guns are still ready to be put to use at any time.

She nips at the sensitive folds at the base of Samara's neck, sharp teeth bruising and breaking the soft skin. Samara doesn't put up a fight, but she doesn't respond to it either, just sighing in response to the furious ministrations. "That's it?" Aria breathes against the aural crease, fingers skimming down the cleft between Samara's breasts, the curves harder than she remembers them, more muscled and defined. "Has anyone even touched you like I did?" A finger slips past the clothing and dips into the sex, stroking, feeling the wetness there already. "Like I am?"

There's only silence, but Samara's eyes are closed, her hands hugging Aria's waist tightly as the Omega ruler drives the finger into her former bondmate's pussy, feeling the muscles clench.

When she feels the tendrils of an attempted melding against her consciousness, she slams her arm against Samara's throat, pressing down harshly. "Don't try it," she hisses, and Samara nods, eyes hooded. Aria won't have any of that melding shit, this is strictly physical – she doesn't want to join and share what's happened, doesn't want Samara to see that she has moved on, a new daughter and new partner – doesn't want the justicar to know her intimate feelings. Not again.

A second finger joins the first as she presses into Samara, the older asari not betraying an ounce of reaction, but her eyes darken when Aria scissors them inside of her, curling to find that spot that used to make Samara sing long ago. It still works, but the reaction is stunted, just a hitch in the breathing.

It's been too long, but she'll take what she can.

So she makes Samara writhe, ever so slightly, and when the justicar bucks as she presses against that spot while taking kiss after kiss from her lips, she feels the oncoming orgasm. It's been long, and it takes so little. Samara comes with just a gasp, and it's only a second that she goes limp, pressed between the wall and Aria, but with a sharp elbow jammed against her airways she recovers quickly.

Aria pulls back, wiping her fingers on the thigh of Samara's suit and licking her lips clean of the taste of a mouth she's spent too long missing. She watches as Samara does her suit up without any tremble, ignoring the dark stain on her leg as she adjusts the collar, and once again it's the impeccable vision of a justicar.

Samara is who she has become, and the same can be said for Aria.

"Go," she says quietly. "And don't come back." There's nothing left for either of them, but she's not about to wish her good luck while sending her off to certain doom with that crazed Commander.

With a gracious bow of her head, Samara leaves. No parting words, no final wisdom. Just like she left her on Thessia.

_For what it's worth_ , Aria thinks to herself later when she sits alone, taking a sip of the Thessia-imported alcohol that's the only thing she'll drink,  _she's not worth a damn to me anymore_. She looks at the only holo she has left – of two smiling asaris holding a child between them, lifting her up towards the night sky – and deletes it without hesitation.


	2. The Sun Has Sunk Behind You

Despite trying to muffle the sobs into a pillow, Falere's crying can be heard throughout the apartment, a constant stream of tears and hiccups, occasionally punctuated by a loud wail or sputtering cough as the cramping lungs try to catch some air.

To escape it, if only for a moment, Aria slips inside Rila's room, her bare feet cautiously treading around the containers within, taking care not to stub her toes on the packed-up and stowed-away mementos of a young life.

The middle daughter left in the morning without packing her belongings, taking only a single suitcase with her – Samara spent the day putting it all in boxes, labeling them and choosing what can stay and what will be donated to charities.

There's scarce anything left on the shelves – a sculpture of a hanar made out of green clay she did on a beach holiday, the pink paint peeling; a jar of shells from Palaven given to Aria by a turian business acquaintance when they spoke of their children (Aria gave his son a book of contemporary Serrice poetry, and thinking of how his mandibles twitched in excitement makes her smile still). Rila was obsessed with the ocean, and had been nagging her mothers for a trip to Kahje for years. The tickets still rest on the nightstand, but the holo-calendar counting down the days is gone.

There are no oceans near where she'll be locked away. No waves to lull her to sleep, no salty scent to put her at ease.

The desolation of the house is felt in all rooms, and Aria flips the light-switch and exits, bumping into Samara in the corridor.

"How is she?" Aria asks. The soft sobs from Falere's room were gone, and as heartless it made her feel, the noise had been fraying Aria's nerves.

"She mourns," Samara says with a sigh, eyes glossy and heavy-lidded from a long day. "I haven't seen her cry so hard since the time she broke her ankle." A wound, poorly tended to, runs down her arm – a scratch inflicted by Falere, before the rage and fury gave way to devastation. The dark-purple crust peeks out from the loose bandaging, and Aria touches it gently, peeling at the dirty tape keeping it on.

She's not certain what to think, or believe, so she does what drove her to settle down as a maiden with a matron in a four-bedroom apartment in Serrice, trusting in the love she's felt ever since she chatted up Samara at the bar – even then, she knew the older matron was bound to be one of those life-altering romances like in the vids.

And here she is, life altered by genetic destiny.

"It looks better," Aria remarks, the bruising along the edges pronounced but the swelling abating. Her thumbs begin rubbing circles along the arm, small ones, because she doesn't know what else to do, but she can feel the tension in every part of Samara's body, each muscle hard as rock. There's a stark beauty to how she copes with sorrow as heavy as this.

It strikes her that neither of them have shed a single tear yet, their daughters crying enough rivers for them.

"Have they caught up with Mirala?" she asks bluntly, but Samara is used to that aspect, doesn't even flinch. Always ready for her bondmate's direct nature. Not many are, and it's one of the many reasons why they were drawn together. A perfect complement, a tug of patience and brashness, balancing and completing each other in some regards, and completely alike in different ones.

"No. She... She impersonated me at the spaceport and got onto an off-world transport. A justicar has been sent."

While it was to be expected – what else had she thought, when Mirala was gone in the morning and they were obligated by law to report it – it still stokes that frustration that's been within Aria the last days. "She's just a child, there's no need to send a justicar after her!"

"A child, yes, but an Ardat-Yakshi."

Aria grits her teeth at the mention of the condition. "Mirala won't stand a chance."

Samara closes her eyes, signaling an end to the brewing argument. Aria concedes – for now – they've fought enough about their youngest one, her absence worse than her presence.

Part of Aria thinks she should have seen it – the strange little quirks in behavior that had appeared after Mirala's crush went missing two weeks prior, but she chalked it down to just being a typical family reaction to stressful situations: keeping calm despite the ice in your hands and fire under your feet. Both Samara and Aria possess that knack, able to stare the most terrifying things in the eye and not give in to the fear.

So does Mirala. Seems to be a thing that she inherited.

_Mirala was oddly complacent, but afflicted with a ravenous hunger that left her raiding the kitchen storages at every hour, and a feverish insomnia that kept her staring out the kitchen window at the glittering traffic grid in the sky, peeling edible blossoms apart and eating the petals one by one. On the night three days before the police was to knock on the door, Aria spoke with her favorite progeny, concerned about how unaffected by the events she was._

_"Don't you miss her?"_

_"I believe she's dead," Mirala says, a faint smile twitching across her lips, then the sadness slides into place again flawlessly._

_"Why would you assume that?"_

_A shrug of the shoulders. "Just a hunch. Either way, I believe she died knowing she was truly loved. I mean, I was the last one who saw her, and I'd like to think I was on her mind when..." Mirala trails off, putting an end to the conversation as she resumes eating._

Hindsight is always painfully accurate at teasing out the little details of the puzzle, as well as pointing out just how easily one is fooled by one's own flesh and blood, because nothing is as blinding as love. It stings, but every minute of every hour of the last few days has been doing just that.

Fingers loosely held around Samara's wrist, Aria pulls her bondmate along with her into their bedroom, closing the door quietly behind her as she gives a light nudge for Samara to sit down on the bed.

Wordlessly she begins, fingers starting at the temples and rubbing short, deft strokes down towards the sharp jaw, not moving on until she feels the tenseness easing up, intent on working every knot out of her love's body. Samara rests her forehead between Aria's breasts as the younger asari moves on to the creases at the back of the neck, shivering when touched along the folds there.

The warm breath flutters against Aria's stomach, past the thin fabric of the nightgown she wears, tickling slightly. As Samara puts her hands to rest on Aria's hips, fingertips catching on the cloth and dragging the hem up, she sighs, a smile twitching at her lips.

Their intimacy fell to the side as the news crashed upon their quiet family life, shredding all semblance of future, of hope. There is nothing left now, but in their private quarters, there is room to pretend that nothing exists outside of their own sphere. In a slip of space and time being eradicated by the cruel hands of fate, one last moment lingers: just the two of them, here and now.

She has craved it, the desire running as a dark undercurrent beneath everything else flowing through her. Yet she holds off on acting out the impulses, continuing with the ministrations upon Samara's body, waiting for the revealing gasp of contentment as another tension point gives way. In just a matter of days, a handful of moments, their projected futures fell apart, and the weight has settled into Samara the worst, dark circles and tiny creases around the eyes.

_The news hit Samara the hardest. In the doctor's office, she utters only a single sentence. "It's me, my pureblood genes, isn't it?" When the idiot of a doctor says a cold yes, Aria spits her in the face and leaves._

_It was too late though, guilt already descending upon them like a dense cloud. Guilt in Samara, because she was the genetic flaw bestowing a curse upon all three of her daughters; guilt in Aria, because part of her agrees, as much as it shames her to admit to it._

Kneeling in front of Samara, she runs her hand tentatively along the length of Samara's thigh, and isn't the least bit surprised when she finds her face cupped and lips meeting, the kiss tentative, then rapidly becoming fervent. There is a bruising need, a force that makes Aria sink her teeth into Samara's lower lip, drawing it in and biting down. They've never kissed like this, rough and hard, and she feels the burning heat of sadness thickening her throat.

Nothing can surprise Aria anymore.

As she runs of air, she tries to pull away. Samara parts reluctantly, with a final, sharp nibble on the upper lip, drawing a whimper out of them both. Aria rests on the knee, tongue peeking out to lick at the skin there, knowing it as a spot that makes the older asari press her thighs together with unfulfilled needs.

When all other road markings disappear, at least she has the map of her bondmate's body, a century of being together having left no skin unexplored. This one, she'll remember forever, ingrained into her memory. If they are apart, even for a night only, she dreams of their limbs entangled, of the soft curve of a hip under her hand and the hard jaw that she often jokes about being able to cut diamonds on.

Samara looks down upon her where she sits, hooded eyes and swollen lips with visible bite-marks, and the thinned thread of patience snaps. Aria proceeds to kiss and lick a path upwards the inner thigh, hands hooked under the knees to keep them apart. As her tongue runs up the clothed sex, Samara groans.

"This..." Aria catches the damp fabric between her teeth, stretching it out before letting snap back into place. "Needs to go." The underwear is quickly discarded with a few shifts before they settle back into the previous position, a hand on Aria's head gently urging her on as her tongue teases along the labia.

Not that she needs it – she can read Samara, and knows to tell the imperceptible signs that divulge what it is that is troubling her mind, as well as letting Aria know what she can do to aid.

Her tongue presses past the nether lips, striking instantly against the sensitive clit hidden there, and Samara gasps and bucks into the touch. Flicking her tongue, tip against bud, she pays close attention to the reactions her actions draw, waiting for the thumb to stroke across her forehead. The small signals and bodily communications bring her endless comfort, to have that light hand upon her head as she works up a different kind of tension.

Samara gasps and throws her head back, back arched, thighs trembling against Aria's cheek, thumbs circling and pressing into the hipbones to control the increasingly erratic rhythm of Samara's rotating hips. She bucks and draws back, moaning and writhing, and then the thumb caresses the forehead. Aria is quick to react, pushing two fingers into Samara's sex, feeling the muscles tighten in a crushing vice around the intruding digits.

Muffling the noises of her impending climax through biting into the soft flesh of her lower arm, Samara falls back on the bed twitching and rolling head from side to side, completely lost to the sensation. Aria has never seen such a display, such an utter abandon of everything at the hands of pleasure, but she's not complaining – she understands perfectly. The need to let go, when everything else is letting go of them.

Curling the fingers within Samara, Aria pumps harder, faster, drawing soft wails each time she hits against the spot. Falling into a harmonious rhythm of licking and finger-fucking, she feels Samara's heels press into her back as the older asari arches off the bed, a single low scream escaping her throat as she orgasms. Aria stays between the trembling legs, lapping and massaging until she hears the frantic panting calm down, and then begins kissing a path up Samara's stomach, pushing the nightgown up as she goes.

Despite having carried and birthed three daughters in a relatively short time period, Samara's body has barely changed from the day they met – a few curves have softened up, the mercenary muscles of her maiden years giving way to a settled-down life and Skyball amateur leagues, and the breasts are fuller. Tongue laving the nipples into hard peaks, Aria sucks one in, lightly grazing her teeth over it. There's so many things she loves about Samara's body – but she has an obsession with the breasts, heavy as they have grown. At night, she curls up against Samara, hand cupping at them and often stroking her thumb over the bud until Samara flicks her across the nose and tells her to stop lest they miss another night of sleep.

When she moves on, lips tracing a path up to Samara's cheek, she finds them wet and salty. She pulls back and their eyes meet, faces illuminated by the dim light seeping in through the blinds from the glowing cityscape outside.

"You've been crying."

"I still am," Samara admits, voice cool as she reaches up and kisses Aria fully, pulling her down so they are resting on their sides, face to face. Her leg rides up between Aria's thighs, pressing against the sex and Aria grinds herself against it, suddenly desperate for pressure to alleviate her own tensions.

There was a vague promise between them, to not let the emotions overwhelm them before they got through this – and there Samara is, crying quietly into their kiss, leaving a salty taste on both tongues and Aria doesn't know what to do.

In comparison to all the other sorrows they have faced together, this one suddenly seems insurmountable, but she can't admit to feeling like that, and pushes the thought away.

"Meld with me," Aria asks, and there is a moment when it seems that Samara hesitates, a furrow flashing across her brow before the eyes darken and the room lights up as skin glows faintly with the nervous systems attuning to each other.

The familiarity of Samara's mind breaks Aria's control, their intertwined nervous systems leading to the first snap of pleasure that never fails to make Aria hurl over the edge, and she clings on to Samara's shoulder as the other sensations follow suit.

Each melding comes with all facets of the others laid bare and naked, and the sadness that crashes against her makes her choke a sob as she realizes just how fully the revelation has altered the warmth she used to find within Samara. Where once there was a fire burning bright, there's only a faint embers and smoldering ashes, and sharp flashes of the preceding events.

_The raging, heart-broken mother of Mirala's crush, of Mirala's victim, as Samara delivers the news, the turian bondmate threatening to slice her fingers off one by one if she ever shows her face to them again. How Samara stands against the raging storm, honing her exterior into not giving in, while inside..._

A finger slides down Aria's chest to circle the areolas, mouth nipping at her neck. She gasps, pressing harder against Samara, feverishly desiring to melt into her, to delve into the good memories of years past instead of the heart-shattering present. Only there is no refuge to be found in either of them.

_A justicar talks with Samara in a calm voice, and despite knowing the dangers of revealing anything greyscale, she feels no fear as they talk. It's not hero worship – she's too old to find them as romantic as they used to be in the stories she read as a child – but there is something incredibly appealing about the tranquility she exudes. So Samara asks a simple question, and the first little seed is sown._

Aria blinks, trying to stave it off. "No," she murmurs into Samara's mouth, pulling back.

Samara puts her lips next to Aria's aural crease, hot tears mingling. "I'm sorry, love," she says, cradling Aria to her.

_An idea with vague forms but clear in its intent: Samara alone, cutting off all ties as she foreswears all she has ever been to be able to atone. A future in which there is no place for Aria – just the vastness of space and a million shining stars and a yearning to be the one to bring about Mirala's death._

The embrace she's held in all of a sudden feels constraining, and she pushes at Samara to escape, but it only tightens.

_"I put her here, she is my burden, my genetic flaw. She is my fault, my error. I must be the one to correct it."_

Their joined nervous system shudders, cresting as Aria swallows back a cry, arms clutching onto the other's body even as Aria wants to sever the connection and find some air. The fine line between pleasure and pain crossed, she still hangs on, a fine sheen of sweat covering them as the dizzying depths they've plunged into gives way.

It's Samara who breaks the connection, shifting in bed to put half a hand's width between them.

"Shall we talk about it?" Samara asks quietly, breath still hitched.

"What's there to talk about?" Aria shuts her eyes tight, feeling the thin string of a headache beginning to build up. "Your mind is made up."

"There is always room for argument."

"I don't argue for the sake of it."

Samara is a stubborn person. It took Aria a lot of smooth words to even get her to consider melding with the younger one in the first place years ago, and even more to accept bonding with someone so young. Yet once her mind was set on something, it was to be – as simple as that.

If becoming a justicar is the only way she can think of to attain some peace and forgiveness, then no one will stand in her way. If killing Mirala is the only thing on her mind, no one will be able to put that thought out.

Not even Aria.

"No," Samara says after a while, defeated. "That you do not."

Aria lets out a cold, bitter laugh, then reaches across the bed and slaps Samara across the cheek, hard. The loud crack of palm against tear-stained skin snaps Samara's head to the side, but she doesn't retaliate. Just swallows once, twice, breathing through her nose.

Sitting up on her side of the bed, Aria clenches her fists into the sheets, biting everything back – all the anger and disappointment and vicious hate, to the point where she can feel her spine trembling from it. Then she grabs a robe from the floor and wraps herself into it, tying the belt around her waist as she gets up and leaves the bedroom, walking barefoot to the elevator in a haze.

Falere's medication to keep her sleeping isn't working well enough – Aria hears her mutter and moan as the doors slide shut, calling out garbled words that mean nothing.

There's a great big void opening up, and while she objectively knows that the elevator is going up to the roof pool, she subjectively feels as if she is in a free-fall. It's not completely true – she has things to fall back on – credits and skills, keen wit and tongue, commando training. And control. She desperately needs control.

The doors open up and she walks across the sun-warmed wooden roof and seats herself on the edge of the pool. Easing her feet into the water she leans forward, chin in hands as she watches the ripples across the surface from the breeze. The summer heat isn't as stifling up on the roof as it is on the ground, and she breathes deeply, one, twice, lungs quivering and clenching.

Finally, alone and with the scent of Samara still upon her body, Aria lets go, and the feeling of nothingness settles in fully.


End file.
